90% TEACHERS TAKING ONLINE CLASSES IN STATE FOR FIRST TIME, REVEALS A SURVEY

CHANDIGARH:OF total 82% respondents having no previous experience of online teaching, 90.2% school teachers are taking online classes in Punjab and Chandigarh for the first time, a survey, conducted online, has shown.

The remaining 9.8% teachers said they were not taking online classes during lockdown amid covid-19, the survey that the Internal Quality Assurance Cell of Dev Samaj College of Education, Chandigarh, conducted has found.

The survey covered 3,550 teachers from government, recognised private and government aided private schools of Punjab and Chandigarh. Of these, 38.6% were primary teachers (PTS), 33.9% trained graduate teachers (TGTS) and 27.5% post graduate teachers (PGTS).

With schools closed for almost two months to contain the spread of coronavirus, teachers are using remote teaching tools and platforms to teach their students.

The survey has been conducted to study the challenges faced by teachers during online teaching, besides seeking their inputs/recommendations to further improve it in a result-oriented manner. Dr Anita Nangia and Dr Seema Sareen, under the guidance of Dev Samaj College of Education principal Dr

Agnese Dhillon, have conducted the survey. The survey findings pointed out that 33.6% of the teachers do not face the problem of lack of appropriate materials and resources while 61.7% reported that they faced this challenge to some extent, while 7.7% to great extent. Only 17.3% of the teachers did not face any technical problems, while the majority of the group faced this challenge to some extent (64.6%) and 18% to a great extent.

As per the survey, lack of internet facilities to students is not a problem for only 17.3% teachers, while for rest of 82.7%, it is a problem to some extent (61.5%) or to great extent (21.2%).